


A Liar's Guide to Juggling

by GreenBryn



Series: Don't Braid The Streams [1]
Category: Central Intelligence (2016), Ghostbusters (2016), Spy (2015)
Genre: Crack Crossover, Crack Treated Seriously, Crossovers & Fandom Fusions, Darla is Susan is Abby, F/M, Gen, Multiple Crossovers, My First Work in This Fandom, Work In Progress, mini nanowrimo
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-21
Updated: 2016-10-21
Packaged: 2018-08-23 18:25:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8338060
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GreenBryn/pseuds/GreenBryn
Summary: In which Darla is Susan, and Susan is Abby; being a Ghostbuster is one of the most dangerous and exciting extended missions she has ever been on, and she is seriously contemplating NEVER letting Erin meet her boyfriend.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Nightloveschild](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=Nightloveschild).



> Apologies in advance for how rough this is - it's been forever since I've written fanfic, and tackling a ménage à trois with three smaller fandoms is probably biting off more than I can chew, but I couldn't resist. I'm planning to write a few drabbles and short ficlets in this 'verse for Mini NaNoWriMo next month, so I thought I'd get this out of the way and flesh out a bit of a premise. This is unbetaed and pretty rambly, but it gives you the gist of how the worlds collide.
> 
> Disclaimer: I don't own the movies Ghostbusters, Spy, or Central Intelligence.
> 
> I'm curious whether anyone is interested in this crossover - Please let me know in the comments if there's any particular scenes or interactions you want to see, or if you have any questions or corrections for me! :D

Susan was used to keeping secrets as a CIA analyst. It wasn't that difficult, since her life was usually pretty quiet - when an "exciting night out" consisted of watching Netflix at home, who exactly was she supposed to tell? Still, handling Bradley Fine had exposed her to a lot of secrets that could earn her a lot of money if she ever felt like selling them to another country and hiding from CIA hunting her down for treason for the rest of her life.

Becoming a spy was much more exciting, in an 'oh god oh god I'm gonna die' kind of way. Some of the disguises needed a bit of work - none of them were quite as bad as that sweater full of cat faces - but Susan felt like she got the 'dowdy unattractive grandma' personality way more often than was far for a woman in the prime of her life. She was a professional, though, and didn't complain about it _too_ much. After all, didn't Mrs. Marple say something once about the things an unremarkable older lady could overhear? Or something. She couldn't remember the exact quote and kept forgetting to look it up. But the point stood - depending on the situation, being frumpy and unremarkable sometimes worked better for gathering information than being sexy and noticed. It didn't make her want to burn that kitten sweater any less, however.

~*~

Going back to her high school reunion was a trip and a half. It was almost like being on-mission, albeit more boring: remembering to respond to her old name (she was in college when she changed her name to Susan Cooper - eighteen years had been long enough to be saddled with a name like Darla McGuckian), keeping to her cover story about what she'd been doing with her life. She used one of her favorites from when she was a handler: telling everyone she had a small but lucrative job with the government, something boring that she could ramble on about until everyone within hearing distanced wished they'd never asked her. It was less boring when Robbie Whierdicht showed up - holy hannah had he aged well, like wine, and she'd love to lick some wine off those abs. From the way he smiled back at her, he seemed like he'd be willing to participate in trying out some of her fantasies.

He was in a pretty boring job too, and she barely kept from zoning off when he explained it to her - something tedious but essential, which paid well but kept him overworked and often on-call. She could relate, and it was nice to date someone who didn't mind her having to go MIA for a week or two at a time, because he was the same way - often getting swamped at work and having to cancel and reschedule.

~*~

Of the many aliases she created over her career at the CIA, Abigail L. Yates was probably one of her favorites. It had started as a lark: Susan had always had an interest in science, and she probably would have made gadgets for the CIA if she hadn't been selected as a handler instead. She had started creating the persona of Abby as a potential alias for a field agent, and had gotten a bit carried away with the research for it when she found herself emailing back and forth with her old-school-friend-slash-fellow-paranormal-enthusiast Erin Gilbert. When Erin proposed using their conversations to write a book about ghosts, Susan almost declined, but finally agreed as long as she could publish under the pseudonym "Abby Yates", telling herself that a published book would really cement the character if anyone started digging into Abby's past. Her lie to Erin (that she was going by that name now) contained a grain of truth (that she had legally changed her name in college), and Erin was an awesome friend and never called her Darla after that. She kept the alias active all these years with the hope that it would become useful when she someday became a field agent, including falling out of communication with Erin, getting herself listed as a professor at the Kenneth P. Higgins Institute, and befriending fellow professor Jillian Holtzmann. One of the great things about Jillian was how she never questioned where Abby was most of the time - she was perfectly happy to have the lab to herself, blasting her music and setting things on fire. She would get so lost in her inventions that Abby wasn't even sure if Jillian realized whether she was in the lab or not most days, which suited her fine.

As they began making breakthroughs actualizing some of her scientific theories, the CIA gave her leave to devote more of her time and energy into the Abby Yates persona. With Jillian's propensity to blow things up (both accidentally and on purpose), working in the lab was nearly as dangerous as many of the missions she'd been on. It was nice maintaining a longer cover - she didn't have a packet full of information to memorize every other week, and Abby's life outside of the lab was quiet enough that it felt like a vacation. She kept Skype video dates with Robbie when she couldn't get away to see him in person, and it was nice.

Then Erin walked back into her life, and things got complicated. Ghosts were real, and they had video proof. Jillian was churning out new inventions every day. Patty had joined them and was helping with the research. And then there was Kevin... although Abby thought Erin's crush on him was ridiculous, she had to admit that she was a bit biased - Kevin was a small fry when compared to Robbie's physique, and Robbie had a mind complex enough to match hers. In the middle of pizza and Erin telling the story of how they met, Abby thanked her lucky stars that she had left enough holes in her alias's history that nothing conflicted with Erin's story. For a moment or two when it felt like her cover was about to be blown, panic flared in the pit of her stomach, threatening to make the pizza reappear. But Erin was so used to calling her Abby that she never slipped, so Abby made a mental note to keep track of any other childhood tales Erin mentioned so she could incorporate them into her alias.

Erin wasn't the only risk to her cover: Her face appearing on television would make it harder to resume work as an active field agent. Homeland Security getting involved wasn't as big of a deal - their department was completely separate from the CIA and rarely crossed paths. But the longer she juggled living as Abby Yates who was secretly an undercover Susan Cooper who pretended to be Darla McGuckian with her boyfriend, the higher the risk that something would come along to upset that delicate balance.

And eventually, something did.


End file.
